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The assumption of an automatic link between disaster exposure and pathological outcomes is increasingly being questioned. Recognition of the possibility of positive reactions and growth outcomes in this context necessitates the development of alternative models and, in particular, the accommodation of the resilience construct in research and intervention agenda. Reviews possible vulnerability and resilience factors and adopts a risk management framework to outline its potential for modelling the complex relationships between these variables and both growth and distress outcomes. Resilience and vulnerability is discussed at dispositional, cognitive and organisational levels. The paradigm developed here focuses attention on facilitating recovery and growth in professionals for whom disaster work and its consequences is an occupational reality.

Despite a ravaging pandemic worldwide, Vietnam managed to contain the local outbreak, partly owing to its carefully implemented risk communications campaign. This chapter investigated the effectiveness of official Vietnam government communications, the sentiment of foreign media reporting on Vietnam, and any challenges. Content analysis was applied to samples from government communications (43 samples); international articles (46); and social media conversations (33). Official government communications were quite accurate, timely, and effective in displaying transparency, employing war symbolism, and shared responsibility, but should more clearly separate between state and expert, offer differing views, and highlight the benefits of compliance. International articles praised the government's viral PSA TikTok video, its transparency, and the netizens' nationalist narratives. While some evidence was found for infodemic, blaming, and heroization, the sample was too small to be conclusive. Future studies should expand the timeframe to a longer duration, quantitatively appraise a wider sampling of social media conversations, and possibly conduct primary interviews with experts, policy makers, and the public.

This paper seeks to examine how perception of the relationship between people and sources of information influence hazard preparedness and how trust in civic emergency planning agencies responsible for risk communication influences preparedness decisions. It aims to hypothesize that: familiarity with and information about hazards predicts the relative importance of trust; and that levels of trust are influenced by community characteristics.

A cross‐sectional analysis of the relationship between trust and hazard preparedness was conducted. Hypotheses were tested using data on bushfire, volcanic and earthquake hazards. Data were analysed using multiple regression analyses.

The first hypothesis, that situational factors predict the relative importance of trust, was supported. Partial support was forthcoming for the second hypothesis. Collective problem solving and empowerment predicted levels of trust.

The findings demonstrated the utility of this multi‐level model for the analysis of risk communication and need to accommodate societal‐level variables in future risk communication research. The source of information plays a role in risk communication that is independent of the information per se.

The relationship between people and civic agencies and the information provided must be accommodated in planning risk communication. The analysis provides an evidence‐based framework for the development of risk communication strategies based on community engagement principles.

This is the first time this multi‐level model has been applied to natural hazards and contributes to understanding the contingent nature of the risk communication process.

This paper summarizes research involving a multidisciplinary team of volcanologists and social scientists. It describes collaboration in relation to social and physical risk and vulnerability following the Mount Ruapehu eruptions of 1995‐1996. This work stresses a key role for such multidisciplinary teams in reducing the social impact of volcanic hazards through assisting communities, organizations, and individuals following an eruption and, importantly, during quiescent periods. We present an overview of a multidisciplinary approach and related research. In stressing the role of the physical science community in managing societal hazards and risk, the paper addresses how this role can be enhanced through collaboration with social scientists and others. The emphasis here is the facilitation of volcanological knowledge and expertise in threat communication, mitigation, community development, emergency planning, and response management. Our research has examined mechanisms for integration, multi‐disciplinary training, and preparing volcanologists for the social demands encountered in playing an active crisis management role. One area of overlap that can tie together disciplines and assist the public is the idea that volcanic activity and the related uncertainties are, at their essence, simply problems that with increasingly integrated efforts likewise have increasingly attainable solutions.

Community perception of climate change is a factor in increasing local awareness of climate disaster risk. This encourages more disaster risk reduction actions by the communities themselves, and thus, provides a driver for sustainable community disaster risk management (DRM) initiatives. Using these hypotheses, this chapter assesses whether the communities’ climate change perceptions, awareness of climate hazardous risk, and subsequent actions on DRR enable local DRM capacity to reduce the increasing climate disaster risk. The study conducts household surveys with an original questionnaire in four communities in Cartago City, Costa Rica.

This paper examines the sources of stress likely to be encountered by emergency managers when responding to a disaster. Stressors relating to environmental (e.g. time pressure, level of risk, heat), organisational (e.g. bureaucracy, appropriateness of information, decision support and management systems) and operational (e.g. incident command, decision making, interagency liaison, team and media management) demands are considered. The mediating role of personality and transient states of physical (e.g. fitness and fatigue) and psychological (e.g. high levels of occupational stress) states are reviewed in terms of their influence on stress, judgement and decision making. Strategies for identifying which of these potential stress factors can be controlled or reduced and for training emergency managers to deal with the others are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to look at the role of community participation in reducing anxiety and trauma in communities during two New Zealand earthquakes: the 1987 Edgecumbe and 2003 Te Anau events and explore the effectiveness of various approaches in providing information, reducing stress, and facilitating a recovery process.

The principle methods of data collection were semi‐structured interviews were undertaken between October 2006 and March 2007 with key agencies and individuals involved in the response and comprehensive analysis of papers, reports and articles in newspapers. The research was undertaken prior to the 4 September 2010 and 2011 earthquakes in Canterbury, New Zealand, and therefore community recovery from these events are not discussed in this paper.

Effective survival and recovery from disasters depends not just on people's abilities to cope with the physical impacts of the event, but also on how the societal environment complements and supports the complex and protracted processes of community recovery. Central to recovery is how society organises, mobilises and coordinates the diverse range of organizational and professional resources that can be called upon to assist recovery.

The paper offers insight into the effectiveness and benefit of incorporating of community participation in reducing anxiety and trauma in communities during earthquakes.

With regard to their utility in predicting the adoption of household hazard preparations, traditional approaches to public education directed at increasing awareness and/or risk perception have proven ineffective. Discusses reasons why this may have occurred from public education, vulnerability analysis, and community resilience perspectives and outlines strategies for enhancing preparedness. Describes a model of resilience to hazard effects that has been tested in different communities and for different hazards (toxic waste, environmental degradation and volcanic hazards). Drawing upon the health education literature, introduces a model for promoting the adoption on preparatory behaviour. Discusses links between these models, and the need for their implementation within a community development framework.

In recent years, the volume and frequency of fraudulent practices in Nigerian banks have been on the increase. According to the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), the level of reported fraud in Nigerian banks rose from N804m in 1990 to N3,199m in 1998. Furthermore, the proportion of actual/expected loss to the amount involved in fraud rose from 3 per cent in 1990 to 22 per cent in 1998. Perhaps the highest fraud ever reported in any particular year by a Nigerian bank occurred in 1998 when United Bank for Africa plc wrote off N786m on account of fraud. The growing scope and scale of fraud in the Nigerian banking industry is not surprising, given the rising profile of the country as a corrupt and fraudulent nation. For instance, a recent survey by Transparency International, a German‐based international organisation that interviewed business people worldwide, listed Nigeria as the second most corrupt country in the world. The country also has a poor reputation concerning drug trafficking. It has, for instance, been asserted that: